


when the streets are so empty (& the fragile can’t pretend)

by possibilist



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 02:20:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2490911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilist/pseuds/possibilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'In the morning you wake up on top of her in your bed, and she’s breathing underneath you, and you wonder how miraculously the habits of life still persist.' carmilla x laura drabble. laura learns new things about carmilla all the time. angst, fluff, lots of frustrated, terrible roommate banter. post-ep23.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when the streets are so empty (& the fragile can’t pretend)

when the streets are so empty (& the fragile can’t pretend)  
.  
can we all rush in/ get me back into the trees/ if this dream wasn't happening/ would it still feel as real?/ will it ever change/ or will it always stay the same  
—lo fang, ‘#88’  
/  
She’s completely infuriating, lounging on your bed when you get back from lecture, getting her scuffed boots all over your mattress, no doubt shedding some of her hair on your pillow—which at this point you might just give her, because this is getting ridiculous.  
When you huff she just keeps reading but mentions, “My sheets probably need to be washed.”  
You take a few deep breaths, because you really would love to punch something right now, but she’d probably just laugh at you, and there’s no point to to giving her more fodder to add to her arsenal of ‘child’ jokes.  
You do, however, shove aside her legs—she lets you without a glance—and settle in with a highlighter and your next Kipling reading. You glance over at her and see that she’s reading something called For the Record: On Sexuality and the Colonial Archive, and you sigh and try not to pay attention to how good she smells—you’re pretty sure she uses your shampoo and conditioner and deodorant, but for some reason she smells so much better than you ever manage. Maybe there’s some natural vampire perfume or—  
“You know Kipling was insanely racist, right?” she pipes up apathetically, putting down her book on her chest and peering at you intently.  
You ignore the fact that you notice she’s wearing one of your flannels and nod. “I’m not a completely oblivious moron.”  
She smiles in a way that’s far, far too pretty to be a sneer. “Sure, cupcake.”  
She goes back to reading, and you roll your eyes before trying to actually pay attention to the words on the page. You make it about four sentences before she says, “I’m reading about Kipling right now.”  
You can’t help it—“Really?”  
“Specifically in relation to the metalepsis of archival by male signs in regards to the colonization of rubber in India.”  
“What?”  
She sits up. “It’s the historiography of the dildo.”  
“You have got to be kidding me.”  
Her eyes glint—you think she’s entirely amused with your expression but also actually excited about this reading or book or whatever, and she shows it to you, and sure enough, the sub-header is indeed The Story of an India Rubber Dildo. “It has to do with Kipling, though, in regards to the deceit of the third space of hybridity.”  
“I always—aren’t you as terrible of a student as you are a roommate?”  
She merely starts reading again. “I am a third year philosophy dilettante, after all, right? And obviously I’d make a fantastic TA.”  
You don’t know why that makes you shiver, but you grumble, “Whatever.”  
She doesn’t move, and you end up tangling your legs with hers—it’s more comfortable, you justify, and she doesn’t seem to mind at all.  
.  
She’s possibly more infuriating than ever when she walks out of the bathroom in a tiny towel, hair dripping water everywhere.  
“Carmilla, I swear to god,” you say, and she raises an eyebrow but then turns her back to you, tugs on some underwear under her towel, and then drops the thing to the floor.  
You swallow and try to concentrate on your Calc I notes, but her skin is pale and dripping, and she pulls on a sweatshirt without a bra, then collects her hair into a messy bun on top of her head.  
Your mouth is entirely dry and you don’t want to acknowledge the wet heat between your legs, but it’s there, and it doesn’t go away even when Carmilla walks over, pours herself a bowl of cereal, then looks you square in the eye and drenches it with blood from her soy milk container.  
“You’re disgusting,” you say, and she only smirks and takes a bite.  
.  
She’s on the floor when you get back from your weekly floor meeting, legs straight against the ground, back against her bed, head lolled to the side.  
“Before you say anything,” she slurs, and yep, definitely drunk, “remember that I’m a centuries-old badass vampire that you tied to a chair for two weeks.”  
“Say anything about what?”  
“And starved.”  
“About what, Carmilla?”  
“Just—anything. Especially in that panicked voice.”  
You take a deep breath and put down your bag, start putting your various books and assignments on your desk to get them organized for the weekend.   
“There’s enough to share,” she offers a few minutes later, and she holds up a bottle of wine.   
“I—”  
“C’mon, cupcake,” she says, sloshing around the contents of her mug.  
You sigh, sit down next to her. “A glass,” you say.  
She grins, then stands unsteadily and grabs your TARDIS mug and fills it about halfway with wine. “You’ve not had wine like this before, I can promise you,” she says, then clumsily sits and hands you the mug.  
You’re not sure exactly what she means and then you taste the wine, and—yeah.  
“Good, huh?” she asks, turning to look at you.  
“Yeah,” you say, and it’s softer than you mean.  
She smiles. “This bottle is worth over a thousand dollars, so you better enjoy it.  
“Jesus,” you mutter, and she laughs.  
“What’s the occasion?” you ask.  
“I’m Eastern European.”  
“That’s getting old.”  
“I am old.”  
You take another sip because she’s infuriating, and she hums a little bit of something you don’t recognize. You look around the room and up at her bed, just to make sure there’s not, like, some vampires lying in wait or anything. It’s neater than usual, and you might be imagining this, because it’s generally improbable, but her sheets smell clean—like your detergent, but clean.  
And then you spot a copy of the DSM V on her headboard, and when you look over at her, she’s closed her eyes and is unnervingly still.  
“Do you have to breathe?” you suddenly wonder.  
“Think about the lack of a need for oxygenated blood, sweetheart,” she says without moving.  
“Is that—weird?”  
“I’ve gotten used to it.” She moves to refill her mug, then takes a gulp before sitting back again.   
“What were you reading today?”  
“Nothing.”  
“Why is there a copy of the—”  
She sits up in a flash and pinches the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Can you just, like, not be nosy for one night, Laura?” It sounds like more of a plea than a command, and you find yourself nodding.  
She sighs in something like relief, and you both go back to your wine.  
In the morning you wake up on top of her in your bed, and she’s breathing underneath you, and you wonder how miraculously the habits of life still persist.  
.  
You see the DSM V again, although this time it’s stuffed into her bag.  
“Are you doing work in psych?” you ask.  
She frowns. “I mean, you are my roommate, so—”  
“Mental illness is not a joke, Carmilla, and—”  
“Whoa, calm down, cutie.”  
You cross your arms and she shrugs. “It’s interesting.”  
It’s a half-assed answer, and you both know it. “I’m going out.”  
.  
“Carm?” you ask into the dark.  
She sighs dramatically. “What?”  
You’re relieved that she’s back. “What are you so scared of?”  
“What?” she says again.  
“Like, what could—why won’t you—”  
“I was in a coffin for seventy years, Laura.”  
“But you could—”  
“Endure that again?” she offers, and there’s an edge to her voice you’d not heard before. “I’m already risking your life, and mine, but—eternity is different.”  
You swallow. It’s the middle of the night, and you’ve no idea why you’ve decided to have this conversation now. “You have nightmares.”  
She’s silent.  
“I know about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”  
“Wikipedia is a wonderful resource, isn’t it?”  
“Carmilla—”  
“You have no idea what they’d—what my mother—I can’t—I have a lot more than nightmares,” she stutters, and you don’t know what to make of that, and you hear her shift, and when you say her name a few seconds later, she’s gone.  
.  
You don’t see her again until the next day when you get back from your morning lectures. She’s pretending to be asleep, you can tell, folded in on herself and pressed into your pillow. It physically hurts you in that moment, because she looks eighteen, and it’s one of the saddest, loveliest things you’ve ever known, how soft she still is.  
You work on a few papers half-heartedly until you hear her stir. “I’m sorry,” you blurt out as soon as you can.  
“Good morning to you too,” she mumbles.  
You turn in your desk chair. “What I said last night, how I intruded, it wasn’t fair and—”  
She rolls her eyes. “Enough pleasantries, okay?”  
It’s apathetic, but you know what she looks like when she’s pleading, and her eyes are far too honest to be anything but that. “Okay,” you say.  
She nods and walks to the kitchen, opens a soda, then stalks toward you. “I’ve seminar,” she says, then hands you the soda.   
“Okay,” you say again, because her face is so close and you hate that she’s so, so sexy.   
She nods and spins on her heel. “Historiography of the dildo, Hollis,” she says with a laugh and a wave as she walks out of the door.  
.  
You somehow end up letting her convince you to show her your krav maga training, and she’s absolutely delighted the entire time, blocking your blows deftly, with more technique than you’d expected—but she’s also being gentle, you know, because she could certainly hurt you if she wanted.  
And then, all of a sudden, she hisses and grabs her wrist so briefly you almost wonder if you missed it. But you still ask, “Are you okay?” because of any outcome, this wasn’t one you’d ever thought of.  
“I’m a vampire,” she says, getting back into her stance. “As if you could hurt me.”  
You roll your eyes and go through your paces again, and then repeat the same move, and she blocks you easily but winces again.  
“You’re hurt!” It comes out much more shrilly than you mean.  
She sighs. “Excited at that prospect, cupcake?”  
You compose yourself quickly. “If you’re going to be protecting me from other supernatural evil beings, I need to know these things.”  
She rolls her eyes. “I’m fine.”  
You reach forward and twist her arm before she can stop you, and she grunts and tugs away in pain. “Right.”  
“It’s an old injury,” she relents. “Wouldn’t get in the way if it was life or death or anything.”  
You study her for a second. Sometimes she’s so obvious—she stares at your boobs a lot—but sometimes she’s so hard to read. You reach forward slowly, with more than enough time that she could pull away if she wanted, but she slouches and looks away as you take her hand, the lift her wrist closer to your face.  
There’s a small raised bump that’s a shade or two less tinted than her skin, usually under where she wears her bracelets, and when you press your finer to it, she jolts back. “Jesus,” she says. “I hope you don’t want to be a doctor because that’s the worst possible bedside—”  
“What’s that from?” you press.  
She won’t look you in the eyes, but she shrugs.   
“Why isn’t it healed?”  
She sighs. “Before, when things happened with Elle—” she stops herself, the says, “I haven’t always made it through all of my battles wisely.”  
.  
The next day you watch her—she gets jumpy when things are too dark; she refuses to get in the elevator with you; she’s afraid of thunderstorms, she sleeps in whimpers.   
She’s also equally determinedly aloof and reluctantly kind to you, editing one of your papers with as many sighs and groans as possible, letting you have control of the music for the day—she’s played Lo Fang before, so that might have something to do with it, but still; she brings you both sushi for dinner, and then takes out some wine.  
“You need some sustenance so you don’t puke all over me,” she says, and you’re fond of her excuses at this point.  
“Sure thing,” you say, and when you hug her, she doesn’t even move away.  
.  
You have no idea how many glasses of wine you’ve had, but you’ve both eaten two cups of chocolate pudding on the floor at this point.  
Suddenly, you find yourself absolutely bursting into tears, your chest tightening and a pit forming in your stomach when absolutely clear realization settles over you. Her eyes widen.  
“They tortured you, right?”  
She swallows and sits back, clenches her jaw. You take all of this as a yes.  
“I threatened to hurt you,” you wail. “And I starved you and I—I’m so, so—”  
She wraps you in a hug, and you’re so drunk but still incredibly comforted, even if you should be the one comforting her. “Exposure therapy, right?”  
An ungraceful laugh bubbles out of you, and you end up getting snot all over the shoulder of her sweater.  
“You’re washing that,” she mumbles.  
“Carm,” you say again, and she backs up a little, “I didn’t know, and—your wrist—I’d have never—”  
“I know, cupcake,” she says, then takes your hand. “And I appreciate the sentiment very much but—can we please talk about something else?”  
You can’t get it out of your mind, but you nod resolutely. “Let’s get you more in touch with contemporary comedy,” you say, and she rolls her eyes, but she opens her arms once you set your laptop on the foot of her bed.  
You settle into them, and really, it’s terrifying but you do fit wonderfully. She grumbles a laugh at Leslie Knope, and she lets you take her hand. You trace over the bump on her wrist, and she kisses the top of your head, and when you wake up in the morning, you’re curled up around her, and she’s completely still, eyes closed, no nightmares.  
.  
It seems organic, you think, when she wakes up and comes to steal a cookie from where you’re working at your desk. You turn your chair, and you stand up and then grasp her wrist, and she just smiles a little before her eyes drop to your lips.  
You’ve been staring at hers, too, and then she’s kissing you.  
“I shouldn’t be—” she mumbles into your mouth.  
You breathe the rest of her words in, and you keep kissing her.  
.  
“I won’t let them hurt you,” she promises a few nights later, smoothing your hair back from your forehead.  
She has no heartbeat, but you imagine some life in the hollow of her chest anyway.  
It’s not really a promise she can guarantee on keeping, you know, but her voice is low and unwavering, and her cool skin is smooth and purposed, legs tangled in yours. You understand, at least in vague terms, what she’s risking in protecting you. “I love you,” you say.  
You chest stays as still as always, though, and when you glance up at her, her eyes are closed and her features are smooth.  
.  
When you wake up the next morning she’s nowhere to be seen, but there’s a chocolate croissant and cocoa on your desk with a note that says, Yeah, whatever—me too, cupcake.  
You can’t help but smile, and when you come back from lectures, she’s lounging in your bed. You don’t say anything, and her eyes are more haunted, you’ve come to realize, than you ever gave her credit for in the past.  
“It’s going to be okay,” you say. You sit down next to her and lean down to kiss her.  
She nods with a desperate pull at your lips, and you pull back and then meet her gently again.


End file.
